Road Rights and Bicycle Advocacy

When the Cop Says Stop

What do you do when you know your area's bike laws, but the police don't?

bob mionske

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A few months ago, I received a phone call from a cyclist with an incredible story about an incident in Lawrence County, Ohio. Because the cyclist-a guy named Tony Patrick-was in need of an attorney, I hooked him up with Steve Magas, a contributing author to Bicycling & the Law, and a well-known bicycling attorney in Ohio. After hearing Tony's story, Steve took his case. More about that later; first, let me tell you about Tony.

Weekdays, Tony runs his small construction company in Huntington, West Virginia. Weeknights, and weekends, Tony, a Cat 2 racer, can often be found hanging out at Jeff's Bike Shop-that is, when he's not out on a training ride, or racing. And that's not unusual; Jeff's Bike Shop is the center of a vibrant racing scene in Huntington, the second-largest city in West Virginia, and the home of Marshall University.

That racing scene means regular training rides, all of which start out and end up at Jeff's. There's a ride every other day, each geared to a different set of riders, but the real hammerfest is the Tuesday night ride. That's the ride where the locals try, as Tony puts it, to hurt each other over the course of a 23-34 mile route that takes them across the Ohio River, into the back roads of southern Ohio, before looping back across the river into Huntington.

And that's how Tony found himself just outside of Chesapeake, Ohio, one Tuesday night in August of 2008, heading into town to take the bridge back across to Huntington. Tony was riding with "Ryan," a then-16 year old nationally-ranked racer with a 4.2 GPA. ["Ryan" is a pseudonym; I've concealed his identity because he's a minor.]

That night, Tony and Ryan were a little tired from a hard training ride the night before, so they decided to take the shorter route. Thus, as they headed into Chesapeake, they were separated from the peloton. Just outside the town limits, they passed the library. Exactly what happened from this point forward is the subject of dispute. Both Tony and Ryan say they were the only two people on the road. But they weren't alone-in the library parking lot was a Lawrence County Sheriff's Deputy. Over the course of several interviews for this story, Tony and Ryan told their side of what happened. The Deputy's account of what happened is contained in his written report of his encounter with the two cyclists, and in his later testimony at a hearing before a judge, nearly five months after the events that occurred on that August evening.